If I'm not mistaken, the Cowboy Junkies album The Trinity Sessions was recorded live on a DAT using a single suspended microphone.
The Demise of disc formats
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Actually older than DAT - I just found this:
it was actually recorded on a Sony Betamax SL-2000 video cassette deck connected to a Sony PCM-F1 digital/analog converter, using one single Calrec ambisonic microphone. Moore suggested the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto for its natural reverb.
I had a roommate that had this same gear borrowed from work so we recorded (2 mics stereo) the band I was in during 1983. BTW, that ambisonics mic is no ordinary single mic!
I saw an Elcaset deck demoed in an exhibit hall at the California State Fair back in the summer of 1977. I fell in love with the thing, but at the time I was bagging groceries and getting paid a blistering $2.25 per hour, so that piece of gear was way beyond my means.
Well, I happily stand corrected.
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Ironically, yes, DVDs are still being mass produced and buyers are 'eating them up' but if you check the prices of new Blu Ray discs as compared to standard 480p DVDs, they're only priced a very few dollars higher!
Blu-ray sales have dropped and DVD sales have increased. Where's the darn logic? [/QUOTE said:
Cost. Blue ray cost a lot more than just a standard DVD.
'Techmoan' out on youtube has a really nice review of the Elcaset. I remember seeing them briefly back in the day at a HiFi store.....
Haven't read through all through all 5 pages, but lamenting the disappearance of physical 'products' in local stores - be they majors or M&Ps - and then buying online seems a bit ironic. If all one cares about is price, locals cannot compete with the net. Remember reading a similar discussion on musical instruments and related gear. If one goes only for price then don't expect the locals to be their with what you want. Some scoff at the argument I would make that the locals have to eat too as they think big stores make 'tons o'money'. Not necessarily true. Selling for a price that makes it possible for the store owner to live as well as their customers is the deal. Yet, we the consumer expect for locals to match the net on price. Ain't gonna happen. You, the consumer, will determine what's available by how and what you spend.
jimfisheye
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I thought bluray was always the boutique disc format. Computers with optical drive bays would come stock with DVD drives. (Even Macs which were more bluray friendly early on.) A bluray drive was the higher priced accessory upgrade. They're really affordable now but still more than a DVD drive. And of course we have the crop of netbook style machines out now with no optical drive bay at all. Hence the subject of this thread!
neil wilkes
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
Which is so symptomatic of the current millennial generation it makes me want to puke.
Since when has everything in the exact same format ever been a reality?
In analogue days we had Vinyl, 8-track, cassette, reels.
In digital days we have CD, DVD, SACD & Blu-ray
It's the streaming & download formats that are messing things up now:
Tidal (advertising stuff as 'master quality' when it does not exist anywhere else), Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, Qobuz, Bandcamp etc almost ad nauseam, running a bewildering array of forms including (but probably not limited to) WAV, FLAC, AIF, ALAC, MP3, AAC-LC, HE AAC, HE AAC v2, HD AAC, MQA, Atmos and so on in various sample rates & bit depths some of which require expensive DAC to utilize and almost all require ever-more expensive monthly subscriptions which you lose everything the moment you stop paying out each month! That to my mind is renting your music, not owning it & certainly not being able to play stuff when you want to, where you want to as you are limited to local WiFi range (unless you are mad enough to use public 'free' Wi-Fi and run the risk of having all your devices hacked & losing all your data, getting your bank account emptied & your identity stolen.
When you get right down to it, we are in the minority being surround fans. Most want stereo only so in reality there are but 3 formats:
CD, DVD & Bluray.
Everything else is a variation on the same theme.
With video it is even easier as you basically have DVD or Blu-ray.
Everything else - all your Netflix, Sky, Amazon Prime etc is all renting and utterly 100% dependent on what you want to see being actually available, and after the first trial month you will usually find you have seen everything interesting on that platform, because every studio & content owner these days now wants their own subscription service. Amazon have bought MGM, but you don't get MGM shows on Amazon Prime unless you buy an extra MGM Subscription, or an Arrow TV subscription, or Disney Plus or whatever studio is now trying to bilk you out of everything by charging you DVD prices for streaming on demand that you cannot even legally download, so the moment it fragments off again you lose stuff.
Sorry.
Rant over.
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MY ADVICE: READ A GOOD BOOK. BOOKS ARE FRIENDS. AND WAIT UNTIL IT COMES OUT IN PAPERBACK .... IT'S CHEAPER!
GREAT RANT NEIL .....
AND HOW TRUE!
neil wilkes
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
I still prefer hardbacks myself, and again if you wait you will find really good copies at places like Abe Books at a fraction of the paperback cost.
As an example, I recently picked up the Strike books for about £5 each with the exception of the latest 5th book which I had to pay £12 for.....(I still buy a LOT of books - another great recent purchase was 'American Gods' & the special edition of 'The Stand' in fine hardback at £20 each....these are well bound & will last far longer than any paperback. Paperbacks are fine for airport/beach (remember when we used to be allowed to fly out to beaches?) but not much else.
Why not paperbacks? They are now expensive & badly made, tending to fall apart if not careful. I had one do this to me yesterday in the Sun - the glue started to slip & the last 50 pages came adrift from the bindings.
Sorry - I can't help my mouth running at times.
As an example, I recently picked up the Strike books for about £5 each with the exception of the latest 5th book which I had to pay £12 for.....(I still buy a LOT of books - another great recent purchase was 'American Gods' & the special edition of 'The Stand' in fine hardback at £20 each....these are well bound & will last far longer than any paperback. Paperbacks are fine for airport/beach (remember when we used to be allowed to fly out to beaches?) but not much else.
Why not paperbacks? They are now expensive & badly made, tending to fall apart if not careful. I had one do this to me yesterday in the Sun - the glue started to slip & the last 50 pages came adrift from the bindings.
Sorry - I can't help my mouth running at times.
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And DON'T FORGET UHD4K Video. It is by far the best video format until 8K rears its ugly little head. Too bad it's not being released in any appreciable quantities and the few that are released are QUESTIONABLE at best [content wise].
As far as 'pushing' paperbacks .... I was being facetious for a weary crowd who has spent literally hundreds, even thousands, to own the VERY BEST replication of a favorite album.
I mean, REALLY FOLKS, how difficult is it to transfer analogue masters of the past 50 years to DIGITAL...in a linear fashion without all the HOOPLA?
And STOP with those LOSSY CODECS .... the equivalent of cheap, paperback dime novels in 2021!!!!!!!!! Should you EVER upgrade your audio systems...you'll know EXACTLY what I'm talking about!
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Well, you nailed it with your rant. I would just amend with the following:
- a goodly number of people also use the subscription services for “try before you buy,” which is fine if you don’t mind paying the freight in your effort to be turned on to “new” music.
- there’s also a niche of audiophiles who enjoy stereo SACDs(think MoFi, for example) but, yes, beyond that, very few people have or care to have an SACD player.
- it’s extremely hard to loan a friend a digital copy of a book when you’re through reading it. Also, the glare on your tablet when reading outdoors/at the beach can be a real bitch!
salsdali
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they still make discs
it's just that Amazon took over the market, just like they did for Books, and basically everything else
Jeff isn't the richest guy in the world for not selling discs on Amazon
If the B&M's could have competed with Jeff and offered the same offerings for the same price within the same shipping time then they would have still been a competitor but alas hindsight is always 20/20 vision
and now Goliath is too big to fail until the next best thing comes round, and as a speculator, I think we are Tapped Out. I just don't foresee anything on the horizon that would be serious competition format-wise
it's just that Amazon took over the market, just like they did for Books, and basically everything else
Jeff isn't the richest guy in the world for not selling discs on Amazon
If the B&M's could have competed with Jeff and offered the same offerings for the same price within the same shipping time then they would have still been a competitor but alas hindsight is always 20/20 vision
and now Goliath is too big to fail until the next best thing comes round, and as a speculator, I think we are Tapped Out. I just don't foresee anything on the horizon that would be serious competition format-wise
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jimfisheye
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Maybe I live in my own little world but...
I thought the trashy online services like iTunes store, Spotify, and now the false advertised "master quality" stuff mentioned kind of shot themselves in the foot as they were kicking their ball away a long time ago. Isn't this all seen as cheapness by any serious music listener? The audience is like my friends in high school that taped songs off the radio on their boombox. Or not even that. Just the ones who only ever listened to the radio. Either in a car or with something like a clock radio thingy. Today it's the stuff they sell in Worst Purchase. Bluetooth earbuds and soundbars and other facsimile audio gear.
Actually Spotify wouldn't be that bad for a cheap music streaming service by themselves. Their problem is most of their source material comes from volume war CD editions.
I thought the trashy online services like iTunes store, Spotify, and now the false advertised "master quality" stuff mentioned kind of shot themselves in the foot as they were kicking their ball away a long time ago. Isn't this all seen as cheapness by any serious music listener? The audience is like my friends in high school that taped songs off the radio on their boombox. Or not even that. Just the ones who only ever listened to the radio. Either in a car or with something like a clock radio thingy. Today it's the stuff they sell in Worst Purchase. Bluetooth earbuds and soundbars and other facsimile audio gear.
Actually Spotify wouldn't be that bad for a cheap music streaming service by themselves. Their problem is most of their source material comes from volume war CD editions.
salsdali
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
yes, but with no lobby money from audiophiles it doesn't matter to the distributors like the music industry
exactly
salsdali
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
yup
Here in the US, there was a series of paperbacks called "Magnum Easy Eye" that used large print and pale green paper to allegedly make them easier to read. I'm not sure how long they were around, but my strongest memories of them were from around 1971.
I had *one* of them that didn't spontaneously self-destruct in exactly the way you describe.
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